


A Killer's Queen

by Faramirlover



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: AU, M/M, Slow Build, rated for swear words, snippets of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2763962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faramirlover/pseuds/Faramirlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q never actually meets the Double-Oh agent that bothers him with increasing regularity, but James Bond is starting to take over his world.</p><p>For the 00QReverseBang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Killer's Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a lovely piece of art by infinite-mirrors. Art here: http://infinite-mirrors.tumblr.com/image/105104538040

This week the target was an international arms dealer - 32, Iranian, scarring to the left arm leading to reduced flexibility, weak right knee from bullet wound - whose guns had armed a bloody coup in South America and increased the death toll in the Middle East by thousands in the last week alone and who had, yesterday, ordered the death of one Sarah Bancroft, previously known to some as 003.

007 endeavoured to keep his personal emotions, if he felt any, out of his professional behaviour. However, if he were ever to take a more than professional interest in a hit, it would be for the execution of a woman who could drink him under the table and laugh like an angel whilst doing it, who slapped him when he went in for a kiss at the Christmas party then brought him ice when it swelled up, who hid the whiskey and brought him a cupcake complete with pink frosting and a silver candle on his birthday. For a woman like that a bullet wasn't enough, a knife and a long, hard chat was deserved.

A simple hit had been sanctioned. Long distance. Clean. In and out.

Well, double-ohs had always been notorious for being rather blasé about following orders. 007 slipped the gun back into its holster and set off at a casual walk to where the Iranian was leant against his car, engrossed in something on his phone.

\------

Q branch was quiet late on a Sunday night. The world of espionage didn't operate on the civilised 9 to 5, Monday to Friday of other jobs, but there were definite regular lulls in activity during which only one junior researcher's presence was necessary. There were several lower level missions in operation and one of the double-ohs was in the field, but none of them should require any assistance until after one of the higher ups was back on duty.

This was good, for Chris, as he’d been hired for his hacking and gadget making, not his way with people.

A quick check through the active operative's locations showed all of the lower rank agents to be either in transit or at their hotels. The only active agent was the double-oh, whose tracker registered him as exiting the rendezvous site at a sedate driving pace, no erratic movements, clearly his mission was complete.

Time to get some all-important tinkering done. He flicked some switches and split his earbuds, music to the right and agent communications to the left. He lost himself to the delicate task of rewriting the programming the facial recognition software.

When he glanced back through what he’d done and noticed his variables names were snatches of lyrics from _Bicycle Race_ he took it as a hint to shuffle through Queen. It was a good choice, Queen had always been a personal favourite (mind you, who didn’t love Queen?), and he found himself typing with the beat of some of the most energised tunes. It was music to work to. Unluckily it had the unfortunate side effect of being impossible to not sing along to.

“She’s a killer quuuueeen, gunpowder, gelatine” coincidently some of his favourite things to play with “dynamite with a laser beam-”

“ _Guaranteed to blow your mind._ ”

 “Shit!” he felt the blush of embarrassment race across his cheeks as he reached out blindly to slap off the music “err, hello?”

There was a chuckle.

“Hello.”

Frantic typing pulled up the feed information. Chris coughed and tried to remember his training, smoothing his voice out into a more professional tone.

“Agent 007, how can I be of assistance?”

“Now don’t do that, I was enjoying the performance. Do you only do Queen or can I put in a request for a personal favourite? The Beatles, if you know who they are? Or some Shakira maybe?”

Wow, what an ass.

“Was there a reason for wasting my valuable time?”

“Valuable? You were singing like you were in the shower.”

“Some of us are capable of multi-tasking, I’m not sure a blunt weapon has any idea how that works.”

For a second he worries that he’s just pissed off someone with a literal licence to kill, then the double-oh is laughing.

“I’ll have to drop by Q-branch for a few lessons. Who should I be looking for?”

“Oh no no. I’m not giving you a description. Or a name.”

“Fine, what are you wearing?”

“I can’t tell if you’re flirting or fishing for information. Neither is going to work for you.”

“You’re so dull. I can hear you typing. What are you working on?”

Chris looked down at the screen and realised he’d picked back up with his coding without even realising.

“Oh I’m programming the database search-”

A low groan cut him off mid-sentence.

“Excuse me, oh nameless minion. Business calls."

"Wait! Are you openly on the comms with civilians in the room?"

“I wouldn’t call them a civilian.”

“Bond-”

The double-oh agent is gone before he can reprimand him for breaking the rules.

\------

It happens again a few days later, when he’s humming along to Bohemian Rhapsody.

“Is that my favourite minion? Or is Q-branch full of Queen fans?”

“There are plenty of other handlers available if you need support. Surely you were assigned a handler before departing.”

“I’m not on a mission right now, just thought I’d check in, see if you were around.”

“How did you get straight through to me?”

“I had to go through a couple of people. Asked for the most acerbic minion they could think of, didn’t take long.”

He made a choked sound of horror.

“Don’t worry, I played fair and didn’t ask anyone to tell me who I was looking for.”

“Thank you.”

“See? I can be nice. Now get on with whatever you’re working on and tell me all about it. I need help getting to sleep.”

He made an indignant noise but picked back up with his tensile strength tests, complete with audio commentary and projected outcome of the shoelace project.

\------

“Have you ever considered moving on to a different band, maybe something a little more modern.”

“Have you ever considered using official lines of communication for official communications?”

“But how would I talk to you if I did that. Unless you’d like to share your mobile number.”

“You’re charming, but you’re not that charming.”

Bond’s chuckle is delighted.

“You think I’m charming?”

“You think you’re charming. I think you need to spend less time flirting and more time protecting the oil tycoon’s daughter. Don’t double-ohs usually do that from more intimate quarters? Or are you on the comms around civilians again?”

“The daughter is fine. And if you’d read the mission file you’d see she’s nineteen.”

“I saw, just wasn’t entirely certain you cared.”

“I prefer my bed partners with a little more maturity.”

“Age is no guarantee of actual experience.”

“And youth is no guarantee of innovation.”

“On that note, was there anything you needed, because if not I’ve got some unimaginative programming to do.”

“Actually yes, you said you were doing something with facial recognition. I’ll send through a couple of pictures. I’ve seen some guys around a few too many times for my taste.”

\------

It’s become a habit to linger in Q branch on Sunday evenings. He’s not been prompted or anything official like that but over the past for months his pay has crept up alongside having some new responsibilities put on his plate and he now has a small flock of junior researchers – they’re not minions, Bond, piss off – so all the late night tinkering that he used to do could easily be passed on to someone else suitably talented. And the increased wage had given him enough money to bring his home lab up to spec so he could have done it all from the comfort of his own bed if he’d wanted to.

But it’s comfortable to stand behind his desk bopping his head to _Innuendo_ , now piping its way through the speakers around the room that he’d had to spend far too little time hacking in to. Bond isn’t the only agent on an active mission tonight and he spends a little time directing them, providing directions and suggestions which, in his opinion, they should be able to sort out for themselves, and patching a few weaknesses in the Six firewall.

Bond doesn’t get in touch and when he manually overrides the audio feed from Bond’s mic to see what’s happening he’s met with the unmistakeable moans and grunts of a couple caught in flagrante delicto.

He shuts off the feed with an overly harsh stab and busies himself with the issue of reducing static and extraneous noise pickup from the standard issue mics.

Next Sunday he packs up at 5 o’clock sharp and leaves Rebecca Sharp in charge of monitoring frequencies. He doesn’t bother to check whether Bond is in the field or not.

\------

When he was called in to see M he half believed that he was about to be told that he no longer existed, that he has committed some massive infraction, and that they’re sorry but he needs to be terminated. So sorry.

In the end it’s worse. They’ve noticed the late night conversations - of course all conversations with operatives were being recorded, idiot - and have decided that he should take on the role of 007’s handler. In a previous life he must have done something truly terrible to deserve a fate like this. He's not an idiot, he's researched what happened to 007's previous handlers out of curiosity and the man had driven more people into psychiatrists office than the rest of the double-oh section combined.

"We think that you two will work very well together."

"Just because we talk doesn't mean he actually listens to me. We all know I flunked the Handler Exam it was just ignored because Boothroyd’s got a soft spot for me."

M doesn’t even attempt to deny this “Exam results aren’t everything. Did you research the mission he was on during your first conversation?”

“No, it was above my paygrade.”

“So you tried to?” he damns his porcelain skin as an embarrassed blush flares across his cheeks “It was a simple mission, the target was directly responsible for the execution of one of Bond’s fellow agents. We were unaware that he knew who he had been ordered to execute. He went off plan, abducted the target instead of performing the simple execution he was supposed to. We believe he intended to, let’s put it delicately, be a little more creative with the man’s death. I won’t go into the details but as far as we can tell, after his conversation with you he changed his mind. Simple execution as planned.”

“Wait, so you’re assuming that after he spent ten minutes talking to me he decided not to torture someone and you think there’s some relation between two things.”

“When you’re on communications his mission success rate is highly improved. Everything’s less… messy, and believe me, with James Bond, to get less messy, it’s worth trying anything.”

“I’m guessing you’re not really asking what I want.”

“Not really, no.”

“Fine, but if I crack because of this I want a quiet, decent sized cubicle where I can tinker in peace with what’s left of my sanity.”

“Deal.”

\------

“Have you ever considered, you know, not sleeping with every woman that you meet?”

“That’s not fair. I sleep with most of the men too.”

“Your dick is going to fall off from the amount of STDs you must catch.”

“Charming.”

“I don’t have to be charming, that’s your job. I just have to keep you alive.”

"Have you considered that I might be more receptive to your instructions if you're nice to me?"

"I have it on the highest authority that has never worked for anyone. Head up to the fourth floor, furthest room from the elevator.”

“It’s locked.”

“Then pick it.”

“It’s _really_ locked.”

“Then break it down.”

The sound of splintering wood is loud but not as loud as the wailing alarm that sounds moments later.

“Queeny? Any chance you can switch this off?”

_Tap tap._

“I’ve told you before, don’t call me that. And no. Work quickly.”

“What else am I supposed to call you if you won’t tell me your name? I’m requesting a new handler if enough of me makes it home to write a proper report. You’re frankly atrocious at this.”

“You never write a report. Now get on and let me get back to doing some real work.”

\------

Six doesn’t do internal promotions to classified positions, such as Q and M. It’s hard to keep your identity secret when reaching positions of high management if you’ve worked with your new underlings for ten years. And the expense of erasing the identities of every new employee would be immense. Which is what makes this unusual.

“Christopher,” M, the only person other than his mother who uses his full name “we have been observing you for some time.”

“In the least creepy way you can take that,” The Major interjects.

Chris has always liked Major Boothroyd, who always frowns at his underlings when the call him Q and glares at any agents that try to call him anything else.

“We believe that you have great potential.”

“Yes, I think that’s the line I was given when you hired me.”

M gives him a look that speaks of how deeply unimpressed she is by his attitude.

“Potential as more than a researcher. We think that you could do very well as the next head of Q-branch.”

It’s not what he expected when they called him up here. He thought it was something to do with 007’s latest mission and the incident with the explosion Bond had managed to trigger in a Subway – the sandwich store, not the transportation system.

“I didn’t think that the Q position was filled from within the department.”

“Not usually, no-” M began but Boothroyd cut her off again.

“I like you, Chris. You’re a genius with the gadgets and you’re a thousand times better than anyone else in the department with computer, including me. You handle Bond on missions better than anyone else. I think that you could be the best department head we’ve ever had. And I’m not exactly shoddy myself.”

“Yes, thank you, Major, for that speech. Christopher, you keep yourself to yourself, you’ve kept your personal life entirely separate from your work, as far as we can tell nobody within the department knows more than your first name, Bond doesn’t even know that and you’ve been handling his missions for six months now. We can hide your identity with relative ease, but we need to do so now or not at all.”

“Ok, where do I sign myself away?”

\------

Nothing particularly changes over the next few months. He’s moved into a Service owned flat, his bank accounts replaced with ones without a name and all record of Christopher Ellwood was erased. In his place there was L. None of the rest of Q-branch knew about the new plan for L’s future and was left to keep himself to himself programming, making gadgets and being bothered by one particularly incessant double-oh.

\------

“You know what would be really useful in a situation like this?”

“I really would have to know what situation you’re in to even take a guess.”

“I thought you were supposed to be handling my missions.”

“No, you handle your missions, I handle you. What are you whining about? And where are you? I think my trackers are malfunctioning. I’m getting a reading in the middle of the pacific.”

“Yeah, that’s why I was thinking a gadget from you would come in handy, like a life raft in the heel of my shoe or something.”

“There are so few occasions where that would be useful, it wouldn’t be worth the time and money for development. How did this even happen?”

“There was this woman-”

“Don’t tell me anymore. Have you, I don’t know, considered not sleeping with random women and concentrating on your job, maybe then you wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Are you going to help me or just lecture me?”

“An Evac team is on its way.”

“Ah yes, your famed multi-tasking skills.”

“Lose the snark or I might tell them you’ve drowned and just to head home.”

“You like my snark.”

“Shut up and keep treading water. And you’d better hope there’s no sharks nearby.”

\------

He’s R now, officially second in command to their fearless leader. This should mean that he’s not directly responsible for handling any agent’s missions but it’s an instinct to slip his ear bud in and set Bond’s calls to automatically route to him. An instinct that he’s not made any effort to erase.

He’s moved up to a better desk, just off to the side of Q’s own and left to develop any equipment he wants to if he can fit it in around his paperwork, health and safety reports and thousands of questions about calibrations and TNT and firewalls and explosive chopsticks –no! just no – that he’s certain he never bothered Q with when he was a researcher.

“Now you’re officially a ‘somebody’ within Q-branch I think it’s time you took on some real responsibilities.”

Like his current work load wasn’t a real responsibility.

“Our gadgets are second to none, Wilkins over at Central hates how well our agents are equipped, but our online security is a joke. I’ve seen the patch jobs you’ve been doing when you think I’m not looking.”

“Sir-”

“Don’t worry, I’m glad. But it needs sorting properly, a complete system overhaul. I’d assign you a team but I know you’d rather do it alone. So, think you’re the man for the job?”

“Yes Major, I’m glad you think so too.”

He’s been working on the basics of a new system on and off for a few weeks but now he can get in to it properly. A few weeks later he’s ready for the overhaul. It’s perfect if he says so himself. The only weakness would occur for a few minutes during the switchover and he’d had a few of his favourite ‘cyber nerds’ as the Major liked to call them stay to keep an eye on things.

\------

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have been more careful.”

Eve tries to slip an arm round his shoulder but he shrugs her away and takes another pull of his whiskey.

“You couldn’t have known we had a mole. Your code’s been looked over, you minimised all the risks. It had to be done. It should have been safe.”

“I should have background checked everyone that I involved.”

“You shouldn’t have had to. It was security’s issue.”

“I should have made it my issue.”

“Q-”

“Don’t call me that!”

“It’s your name now.”

“Get out.”

He throws the whiskey glass across the room and she leaves.

He wants to stay home for days, drinking himself into stupidity. It’s his fault that six agents are dead along with the Major and three of his technicians. He wants to crawl into a hole and never come out. He weighed the risks and he lost. He wants to take Raoul Silva’s throat in his bare hands and crush the life out of him. But he can’t, because Bond already did that and he’s the only one left who can hold Q-branch together.

He sends Eve flowers as an apology and when she sends him a box of mulch back he buys her some Louboutins. Everything’s pretty much normal after that, even if he still sometimes flinches when someone calls him Q.

\------

It’s entirely exhausting being Q. There’s more paperwork than he ever saw as R, mainly because he doesn’t have an R of his own, but because he needs to sign off on every requisition form and staff rotas and agents to arm. The department is almost unrecognisable from Boothroyd’s day. The mess of gadget making on every surface is gone, each piece of technology under development shifted to its own side room and the main room only used for computers, cybersecurity, modelling for future projects and handling agents. And no more making whatever gadgets you fancy then showing it to him. Every project has to be signed off before going to development. And no testing explosives or firearms anywhere but on the firing range or in the blast proof rooms. That had been a catastrophe waiting to happen.

But it’s working, he feels in control. He has time to work on his own projects, oversee the equipping of agents for any Grace C and above missions, still find time to go home at least every three days and keep 007 from blowing up the world.

\------

Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to decide that he didn’t have the hands to carry his umbrella three days ago. And maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad if he had wrapped up warm and had a good night’s sleep after getting completely soaked on the walk home instead of falling asleep in his damp clothes on the sofa, halfway through an episode of Doctor Who. And maybe he wouldn’t have developed the flu that had lain him up in bed if, after waking up with a cough, he’d taken a day off or even not decided to spend the next day running himself ragged designing a pair of glasses with a built in x-ray filter – and yes Bond you can technically use them to see through clothes but don’t be so uncouth. Instead he had made himself ill and now couldn’t even lift his laptop.

Maybe he could get Eve or Tanner or someone – god no, not M though - to drop off some drugs and some food or something. He flailed for a while, tangled in the duvet and managed to knock over his water glass and reach his ear piece but his phone was out of reach. He flaked out eventually, too hot and dehydrated and thoroughly unhappy.

“Quick, I need advice.”

“Eurgh?”

“Queeny?”

“Fuck off Bond, I’m ill.”

“Why are you on comms if you’re ill.”

“Dunno, didn’t mean to. Missed you maybe.”

“You’re such a charmer,” Bond chuckled “Still don’t fancy telling me your name? I could come over.”

“You can’t help me from Dubai.”

“Get Tanner to bring you something. He loves to mother hen people, even lowly minions.”

“Get off the line then.”

“Ok, I’m going. Look after yourself.”

He was asleep again before Bond was finished talking and when he woke he couldn’t be entirely certain that the entire conversation hadn’t been a hallucination.

\------

He gets back to work and everything goes back to normal, his subordinates expressing happiness that Tanner is no longer in temporary control of the department and that the threatened team building exercises won’t come to pass, will they?

Everything is right in their secret world.

It all comes crashing back down again on a routine mission that he’s only on the comms for out of habit. He’s only working on an update to his old facial recognition software and Bond’s voice in his ear isn’t distracting in the slightest. Bond is on an in and out mission, only there because the laptop Q needs to get in to isn’t connected to the web. He’s using a party as a cover to head upstairs and plug in his USB stick. There aren’t supposed to be any guards to cause issues and the laptop owner should be downstairs entertaining guests. Someone other than Bond was somewhere they shouldn’t be because he’s barely made it up the stairs when the sounds of a heavy firefight breaks out in the ear.

There are grunts of exertion that he recognises as Bond’s and shouting in what he absently registers as Spanish. Not locals then. The sound of gunfire peters out and the last sound is of Bond coughing, painful and sticky. Then nothing.

“Bond, Bond? Talk to me you ass!”

Silence remained, the mic not even picking up any breathing, nothing to indicate that on the other side of the world, Bond was still alive.

“Med evac for Bond! – Bond, talk to me, give me something. Double-oh-seven, report now!”

There’s the sound of smashing pottery and it doesn’t even register that it’d not over the comms but it’s the sound of his mug shattering on the ground. He’s franticly clattering at his computer, pushing papers and pens and everything useless out of the way, trying to boost the signal, perhaps Bond is fine and his equipment is simply malfunctioning.

“Bond!”

“Bond?” he tries again but he’s shaking and it’s coming out as a whisper and there are hands pulling him away from his station.

There’s the nick of a needle against the bare skin of his neck and then it’s fading to black.

“… James?”

\------

The rest of Q-branch treats him as though he’s breakable for the next few days, expecting him to break, already brought close to the edge. It makes him angry, angry at himself and them. He chooses to pretend to himself that he’s fine, that the edge of his screen doesn’t have 007’s vital readings streaming live from Medical, that he wasn’t sedated in front of half of them mere days ago.

The drug that they’d given him to calm him down had left him asleep for two days and by the time he made it back into work Bond was in Medical, massive blood loss, punctured lung, numerous bullet wounds and resolutely unconscious through the entire process.

Three days later the double-oh was released in to the care of a personal nurse. Q told himself he was checking the security of one of the agency’s assets when he spent the next twenty minutes trawling through the nurses history, checking bank accounts and criminal records and facebook photos until a message pinged through from Tanner.

_Go back to work. Bond pissed her off and she left already. He’s fine._

He went back to work and tried to put the agent out of his mind.

\------

Not that he expected him to be, he had hoped but not expected, but Bond isn’t in contact for the next few weeks. He’s on leave, confined to his home as he heals, not allowed within Six’s walls until cleared by a Doctor that he hasn’t slept with.

Bond goes back on missions but doesn’t require any direct handling, all of them small things, well below the level of a double-oh agent. He can imagine the way Bond would complain about being babied, about being perfectly recovered and that he was never that bad in the first place. But he doesn’t turn on his mic and Q doesn’t override to check in and see how he’s doing.

He keeps himself out of the way when Bond comes by Branch to pick up and drop off equipment.

\------

He knows every inch of 007’s body down to the smallest detail. He knows the muscle-fat ratios of every muscle group, knows their strength, what he can lift and what he can’t. He knows the breadth of his shoulders and the slimness of his waist, knows the length of his stride and the reach of his arm, knows how fast he can run, climb, sprint, swim, how long he can hold his breath, how much pain he can take. He knows the tightness of the scar tissue in his shoulder and when it will start to affect his aim, knows how his knee aches from the cold and how his hip will get stiff if he stays still for too long.

He knows his strengths and his weaknesses. He knows when he will bend and when he will break.

But he doesn’t know the sparkling blue of his eyes or the quirk of a smile tugging at his lips as he flirts with Moneypenny. Doesn’t know the way the sharp cut of his suit and the way it hugs his figure, has only vaguely considered it for its effect on the women charmed into Bond’s bed with unsurprising regularity.

It’s a punch to the stomach, to see Bond for the first time.

It’s not that he hadn’t believed all the medical reports about Bond’s recovery but to see it with his own eyes, to see the bruises left over and the jagged scabbing splitting his eyebrow, to see that that’s all that’s left from his agents brush with death is such a relief that he feels sick.

If he’d though he was about to see Bond, alive and relatively well, then he would have expected the wash of relief. He wouldn’t have expected the sharp stab of attraction that hits him low in the stomach.  Sure, he’s aware of how much he enjoys Bond’s sharp conversation and razor wit, but now he can see the package that intelligence goes with he feels completely overwhelmed.

He knows he’s staring but he can’t help it and when Bond swings his gaze around Q-branch, as though looking for something he ducks behind his computer screen, panicked, and feels a blush racing its way up his cheeks.

When he finally emerges Bond and Eve are gone. Which is fine. He didn’t want to see him anyway.

\------

He can’t sleep. It had never really occurred to him that he had never seen Bond’s face. When he was R there was no need to equip agents personally and, after the disaster that landed him as Q, Bond had never needed anything more complicated than a gun and a radio, no matter how much he complained about wanting something a little more exciting. Giving him equipment had been simple to delegate to someone else. He hadn’t known what he was missing.  But now he’s seen him he’s not sure he can’t take that knowledge back. What he can now easily admit was a healthily flourishing little crush had taken a massive leap forward and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

When sleep does come he dreams of Bond's voice, chatting together as the agent leans his hip against the edge of his desk.

\------

When he goes in to work there are flowers at his desk, a small collection of large daisies. None of the minions –damnit Bond, that’s entirely on you – appear to be looking at them or at him, but that mean nothing. There’s no note to go with the flowers, nothing to explain who sent them or why. He should bin them, who knows if they’re safe, and he does most of them, but one he keeps, slipping it into a glass of water – very unsafe around computers, really he should know better. He likes how it looks against the stark whiteness of Q-branch.

The next day there’s a mug waiting on his desk and it isn’t until he spins it around that he sees the scrabble Q and he laughs. It makes him smile every time he drinks from it but when he rewinds his surveillance footage there’s only a little hitch in the video and suddenly it appears. That should worry him but there were researchers around at the time who all claim to see nothing. They’re hiding it from him, which should also be a worry, but he’ll let them get away with it for now.

There follows a flurry of chocolates, a fountain pen, a travel chess set a single rose, a Queen t-shirt.

… A Queen t-shirt.

\------

He finds Bond in the gym, shirt off, lifting weights. He refused to be distracted.

“How long have you known?”

“I had suspicions, Eve told me about an agent they were grooming to be Q.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“You didn’t either.”

They stood in half awkward silence.

“You know, I came by Q branch a few times, saw you around. I thought it must be you. It looked like it should be you.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“It is, I knew you’d be gorgeous,” his now trademark blush returns full force “you didn’t notice me.”

“I was probably too busy thinking about you to notice intimidating agents wandering about Branch. I never knew what you looked like. I never looked at your pictures.”

“I-”

“Why have you been sending me gifts, Bond?”

“Because I think I’ve been in love with you since I heard you singing,” that’s far more honesty than he ever expected from an agent, let alone _his_ agent, far too readily given “do you… do you think that you could maybe feel the same way?”

“You are an idiot, James Bond. You’re all I ever think about,” it’s out before he can even think about what to say.

It’s ridiculous that he hadn’t noticed but in the last year and a half his whole life has slowly begun revolving around a man he’d never met. It’s terrifying, and Bond is advancing on him from across the gym, smile predatory and eyes dancing.

“Don’t think this means I’m going to let you get away with bullying my minions. And I’m not going to make you any gadget you fancy. No privileges for you, I might even have to favour some of the other-”

James cuts him off with a firm kiss and it’s not hard to see how he’s made men and women around the world fall to their knees for him. It’s slow, firm, and the hand that comes up to cup his cheek is warm, the fingertips rough with calluses.

It’s perfect.

Then there’s a hand sliding under his cardigan, rubbing at the bare skin between his shirt and trousers, gentle and enticing. He pulls back.

“Woah there, you. Just because I've admitted to being madly in love with you doesn’t mean I’m putting out before you’ve even taken me out on one date.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“Yes you did. Now put on a shirt and take me out for some Chinese. If you’re very lucky I’ll let you come back and look at my CD collection.”

James lets out a laugh as he leaves and the sound of him humming _Killer Queen_ follows him down the corridor.


End file.
